Ubiquiti UniFi nanoHD Compact 802.11ac Wave2 MU-MIMO Enterprise Access Point ( UAP-NANOHD-US)

Summary:- DFS channels, so you can use channels your neighbors probably dont have (yey for clear channels).- Very short range. These are meant for small coverage areas, like 1 or two rooms max.- Low receive gain. In terms of radio performance, they can shout, but can't hear very well.- The low gain and short range is not always a bad thing, its great for reducing interference and focusing wifi in a small area. That is a good thing for high density areas, but don't expect any long range or whole house coverage.- Great overall AP, but you will VERY likely need more than one if you want respectable performance for home or business.This is a great multi-user AP, however if you use it for home, there are things you should know.It is short range. To be specific, it has very low gain (likely no gain or negative gain). This is only a bad thing if you are trying to cover a large area, or multiple rooms in a home. It turns out this is a good thing for reducing noisy neighborhood interference (which I have a LOT of). It is true that the NanoHD has shorter range than most consumer APs out there. On the Unifi forums, many people talk about this, but the Unifi fans will assure you the NanoHD is a "good radio". It is great actually, as long as the short range and low dbm is OK for you. It's receive dbm is about 10dbm (or more) lower than most other APs, including fellow Unifi APs like the mesh and U6-LR. It is even way lower than the old archer A7. Apparently that is not a problem, as it still performs well like that in high density environments.The TX and RX rates dont hit max on most devices, so it can be slower than other APs for single user downloads. This is a known issue, where a wifi 5 device that can reach 866Mbps Rates will not maintain the full rate. This is likely not a problem you will notice or care about as it wont affect your ability to stream and stuff... however it is annoying to me because just about every other AP I've had can reach full speed rates. Again on the Unifi forums, the pros dont mind this nuance because although the Nano is somewhat "slow" for single users, it is "fast" overall if you consider the aggregate performance of lots of concurrent users.This AP supports DFS channels, which makes it worth it by itself. Apparently DFS channels can be problematic if you live by an airport or have lots of radar traffic in your area, but for me this was the solution to all my interference problems. The clear channels and small cell size (range) actually solved my biggest wifi problems, which had to do with all my neighbors and their millions of wifi devices causing lots of interference.The Unifi APs including the NanoHD have great roaming and support the newest roaming standards. The low range and slightly lower receive sensitivity actually helps roaming. Your wifi devices are more likely to pick a stronger AP under these conditions, which makes roaming smooth and effective. I have a few mobile devices and VoIP devices that can roam seamlessly between multiple NanoHDs. This is one benefit to smaller range/cell size. Of course you need multiple APs to benefit from roaming, but if you go with Nanos, you will likely need more than one anyway.Q&A:Will this solve all of your wifi issues? Yes, most likely.Will you be happy with 2 or 3 in your home? Yea, they get the job done and have great roaming.Will you be happy with 1 for full home coverage? Nah, you need more than 1 if your house has walls in it.Will you be happy if you are a wifi nerd and love internet? Absolutely not, we wifi nerds are never satisfied with wifi or internet performance, but it will keep the wifi nerds busy and you may still have fun with it.Is there something better than the NanoHD at the same price? Absolutely. If you want to stick with Unifi, the U6-Lite is cheaper and faster than the Nano for single user speeds. The U6-LR is the same price and blows the nano away for range and speed.At the end of the day, its a 5 star product that will improve/fix just about any older/outdated wifi deployment.

I've been using Ubiquiti UniFi APs at home (and at work) for a long time, so I selected the Ubiquiti UniFi nanoHD Compact 802.11ac Wave2 MU-MIMO Enterprise Access Point ( UAP-NANOHD-US) units for my new home. While the UAP-AC-PROs that I'd used before were still available (and are a bit cheaper), they're quite a bit larger. At about 6 inches diameter, the nanoHD blends in to the home a bit better.Hard installation is easy. Assuming that you aren't putting the AP on a drop-ceiling tile (which uses the included metal back plate), you mount a plastic plate to the ceiling or wall. Run a Cat5e cable to the AP. Plug one end into the AP, and the other into a PoE switch or the included injector.Soft installation consists of installing the UniFi Network software on a PC (I installed mine on my home automation server). UniFi Network requires Java, so it makes you install that. Beyond that, you either perform a local installation, or create a UniFi account, for administration. I opted for the local administration. Once running, UniFi Network identifies all Ubiquiti APs on your network. From there you can set all of the AP properties, create all of your SSIDs, associate them to your various VLANs, organize your APs on a map, perform an RF survey, etc. One of the tasks you can perform, is to update your AP firmware. Mine was pretty out of date. Updating takes about 5 minutes.I've included a few pictures of the installation (before I put the cable IN the wall), and the management software. Though it's really nice software, it's obvious that they want you to have a full Ubiquiti ecosystem.... with their switches and routers. I'm using Netgear PoE switches and a home-built, 1U pfSense router, so I've obviously gone the other way. Regardless, even for just the management of the WAPs, the software is far beyond anything else you can get at the price.For a house that's approximately 5400sqft, I have two, wall-mounted, on the ground floor. One, ceiling mounted, on the 2nd floor, and a last one, ceiling-mounted on a drop-ceiling, in the basement. If your house either has some structured wiring that you can take advantage of, if you can just add a few Cat5e runs, or if you can even just backhaul your network with PowerLine networking, then you will have MUCH BETTER performance with non-meshed WAPs. If that's a project you want to take on, then the Ubiquiti UniFi nanoHD Compact 802.11ac Wave2 MU-MIMO Enterprise Access Points are a great way to do it. Highly Recommended.

What else can I say?The last time they were restarted was when we had a power outage a year ago. This time was for a firmware update.I installed a full Unifi WiFi/surveillance system in early 2020, with three NanoHDs as access points for all our wireless devices, and they’ve worked flawlessly since being installed. Rock solid.The only issue I had at first was if you have a textured ceiling and are ceiling-mounting these, it can be a bit of a pain, since the plastic mount sits flush to the back. I ended up using the metal mount that comes with each one as a spacer under the plastic mount, and that gave me just enough clearance to get the mount to seat and lock.Other than that I have no complaints to speak of. I’ve had systems from both Apple and TP-Link in the past, and these absolutely smoke them in reliability.In fact my network is so reliable now that whenever there’s an issue connecting to a website, or with internet connectivity in general, I know the problem is external and I don’t have to troubleshoot. I just wait for the problem to “fix” itself.I could never say that with anything else I’ve used. I was always rebooting routers and practicing network voodoo to stay connected. I work from home now so network connectivity and reliability is my top priority.They cost a bit more, but the price is worth it. Highly recommended.